Amy and Paul – We are doing great! We are so appreciative and happy to have our home. We absolutely love it! It has been such a blessing raising our children in such a nice home. Our children are 17, 16, 14, 12, 11, 6, 4, and 2. The kids are enjoying school and doing well in their classes. In their free time the kids play the piano, read, draw, play baseball, basketball, go ice skating, and of course video games are on the list. Our son and daughter are taking a cooking class and really love baking. Our 16 old son makes the best chocolate chip cookies, and our 12-year-old daughter makes delicious apple pies. Having older children who like to cook make the holidays more fun.

One of our favorite family recipes during Christmas time is homemade rocky road. The recipe is extremely easy and it’s usually a hit with our extended family. We hope you will enjoy making this candy for your family during the holidays too.

• 1 12 oz. bag milk chocolate chips
• 1 12 oz. bag butterscotch chips
• Melt the two together on low heat in a saucepan,
• Take the pan off the stove and mix in 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter, then add 1 cup salted planters peanuts, 3 cups mini marshmallows, and mix together gently until the marshmallows and peanuts are coated with the chocolate mixture, then scoop the rocky road into a 8×11 pan that is covered with parchment paper to help keep the rocky road from sticking. Refrigerate for a few hours, cut, and enjoy.

Blessings,

Paul & Amy (Habitat 2018 home purchasers)

Moving to Sonoma County from Los Angeles at seven years old, Hannah found home. She’s left and returned, but this is the place, the community, where she and her family belong. Her husband, Jeffrey, grew up in Trinidad and Tobago. Both coming to Sonoma from somewhere else, they appreciate the land and the people with the wisdom of contrast.

This is a couple that knows what it means to work hard for what you have. Hannah was raised by powerful women—her mother, single in the absence of her abusive father, a grandmother who brought up eight children and cooked for ten people night by night without complaint. It was these kinds of examples, no doubt, that gave her the strength to work long hours through her own pregnancy at the restaurant where she’s worked for over ten years, not far from where her new home will be. It was challenging, at times painful, but she would do what she needed to do for her family.

Jeffrey never had it easy either, losing his mother to drugs and his father to prison, and later death, at an early age. His own goals and his education were sidelined when he took on the care of his younger siblings. But these rough beginnings don’t hold him back: Jeffrey took literacy classes at the Sonoma County library, keeps his own landscaping business, is pursuing American citizenship, and even takes time to give back, like volunteering in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Through all their challenges, and against whatever obstacles they meet down the line, one thing continues to drive them: family. Their three beautiful children give them strength and purpose. Whatever it takes, the children will have what their parents never did—a safe childhood full of play and security, the freedom to dream grandly of their futures. Even in the home that the couple currently rents, where mold creeps in during damp winter months and they must make due with too little space, they give their children what they can of these things. “We are bound by love, hard work, and determination,” Hannah wrote in the personal statement that accompanied their homeownership application. They are family, they are neighbors—the only things missing are the walls and roof that they’ll own themselves.

The high cost of living and instability of renting in Sonoma County has at times forced Hannah and Jeffrey to consider leaving the community that they have grown to love, but through partnership with Habitat for Humanity of Sonoma County, the dream of raising their children in a safe, comfortable home of their own, one of which they can be proud, will be a reality. Hannah and Jeffrey will be moving into one of two Habitat homes at Green Valley Village in beautiful Graton, CA. Hannah will be closer to work. Their children will play in parks and gardens and be surrounded by the gorgeous open spaces of rural Sonoma County. They’ll sleep in their own beds, breathe in clean air, tie memories of their childhood to a space that belongs to them. Their family will know a stability and permanence that they never knew before. They will be—finally—home.

Building a New Life: Prospective Homeowner Partner Jasmine Palmer

In her own unvarnished words, Jasmine Palmer “learned to be a responsible adult” later in life than she would have liked. But after years of “living like an adolescent teenager getting in trouble all the time,” she found herself at a crossroads, separated from her two children and needing to ask herself some hard questions about her future.
With her then 4- and 7-year-old daughters under the care of her mother, Jasmine entered and successfully completed a stringent six-month residential treatment program for substance abuse. She then reunited with her daughters and moved in with her mother, where she remains today as she begins to engage in the “sweat equity” activities in partnership with Habitat for Humanity that will allow her to become a proud and productive homeowner.
 Three years clean and with a full-time job as a counselor with a nine-client caseload at the same rehabilitation center she attended, Jasmine is also working to finishing her AA degree at SRJC. Her career goal is to becoming a counselor for women in jail. 
 Having long looked for places to move so she could live independently with her daughters, Jasmine was discouraged by the high housing prices of Sonoma County. Then one day she saw an ad from Habitat for Humanity and she wondered if she might qualify. It turned out she was an ideal candidate: committed, focused, employed, with a clear need for a home but an income gap that could not be bridged without the kind of assistance that Habitat for Humanity provides.
 Over the past few months, she submitted paperwork that included bank statements, credit reports, tax records, recommendations and more. The happy result was approval of her application for a two-bedroom home in the Woodland Hills neighborhood in Cotati, where construction begin this month. Just relating the process makes her grin and glow with pride.

“I did a lot of damage when I was in trouble,” she says. “It was pretty cool to be able to prove that I’d re-established everything. It still doesn’t seem real yet, like it’s too good to be true. But I’m ready to be independent. I’m ready to be Mom again.”

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To Our Faith-Build Partners
If church members or staff are reading this and wondering whether joining with Habitat for Humanity of Sonoma County might be a good way to support your own mission of helping to build a better world, please know that we would love to have you join us! Financial support and volunteer labor provided by our faith partners is a vital element in Habitat’s success! Some congregations designate funds in their budgets for Habitat Sonoma County, while others hold special collections, fundraisers, and other events that help keep our doors open and our plans afloat to keep building homes for worthy local applicants! Others provide volunteer work crews to our All Faiths House initiatives. The All Faiths House brings faith communities together to focus on funding and building a home in partnership with a low-income family. If that sounds like something aligned with your congregational vision, please consider joining us! Find out more by contacting our  volunteer services at volunteer@habitatsoco.org or by call 578-7707 ext. 122.